Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1388

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Allerdyce C.
MHRA to investigate naughty Mr. GSK !
The Guardian 2003 Aug 12

Full text:

According to a report in todays issue of the Guardian (12/08/03), the Medicines Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is to urgently investigate a marketing ploy by GlaxoSmithkline (GSK) that uses a specially written Mr. Men children’s book to promote its anti-allergy products.

The Mr. Men book in question contains nine pages of story that is presented in the same format as the other Mr. Men books. It tells how Mr. Sneeze suffers from a summer ailment he believes is a cold. His companion, Little Miss Sunshine, suggests he may have hay fever, but his sneezing does not stop after he ploughs up all his grass. Eventually they discover that Mr. Sneeze is allergic to the feathers in his pillow.
At the back of the book there is then four additional pages of allergy advice from a charity, Allergy UK, and two pages from GlaxoSmithkline on its products Piriton and Piriteze.
Although the books are not for sale in shops 50,000 copies have been printed this year, many given to Tesco Clubcard holders. They had also been available at GSK roadshows.

The Proprietary Association of Great Britain, the trade body to which the government has delegated checking of marketing material, passed the book stating that the book had been approved “on the basis its target audience is parents. However the MHRA announced that it was “unaware” of the publication, although GSK claim they have been using it for two years without a single complaint from parents.

Recent media reports are likely to re-ignite rows between consumer groups, regulators and firms over just how far the latter can go in passing on “information” to parents. Currently the law prohibits promotion of medicine to children, even over-the-counter medicines.
A spokesperson from GSK states that the book’s aim is to raise awareness of allergies in general and especially indoor allergies and added that the book was designed so that parents could choose to cut out the sections not part of the story. However spokesperson from the Consumers’ Association argues, “How can it be educational and unbiased when it only talks about GSK products?” and the Association has called for an impartial central system, free of commercial bias, to inform consumers